News last week that TUI Travel is launching its own user review and recommendation site across mainland Europe indicates yet again that large travel companies are keen to get their hands on unique content. TUI's new Cheqqer service is interesting in that it is planning a two-tiered approach to getting content - starting from the bottom up in terms of attracting new reviews to the platform and also aggregating reviews from TUI's myriad of brands. Nothing wrong with that, except that two years is a long time in the world of user generated content and those with longish memories will recall how TUI's Thomson division bought the well regarded (and well-SEOed!) Holidays Uncovered site in September 2007.... Read More

The Times reported that Amadeus and Travelport, which operate three of the four major global distribution systems, have abandoned merger talks and will pursue separate public offerings in Madrid and London, respectively, in the interim. Hey, the two travel distribution powerhouses, owned by private equity companies, can always get back to their wooing later, The Times reports. Asked about the report, Travelport GDS spokeswoman Jill Brenner says: "We never comment on market rumor or speculation." In my decade of writing about travel distribution, perhaps there has been no greater sport than speculating about GDS mergers, but I am not buying this one.... Read More

Most popular travel websites in the UK for the week ending October 17 2009. Data includes Top Ten travel search terms and the Top Ten Agency, Airline and Destination/Accommodation sites.... Read More

Sabre has been marketing cubeless, a social networking platform and knowledge base, to corporations inside and outside the travel industry, but now, it turns out, chairman and CEO Sam Gilliland has abandoned the corner office for a cube. OK, no real connection between cubeless and Gilliland's cube decision other than the fact that both symbolize a sort of opening up and a laudable democratization of sorts. And, I wonder how Gilliland's cubemates would have reacted to a Dallas Morning News interview over the weekend and, specifically, to the following spin about Sabre's loss of its American Airlines' hosting contract to HP.... Read More

There is clearly something in the air in GDSland, perhaps fuelled by the apparent green shoots of recovery appearing in the ground. Now it's the turn of Sabre to shed a small chink of light on its corporate plans for the next year - and it includes a possible invitation to the GDS IPO party also being planned by each of its rivals. This latest twist follows reports about Travelport seeking a public listing and Amadeus doing nothing at all to deny rumours of an Euro 8 billion potential floatation in Madrid.... Read More

What you missed on Tnooz this week, Sunday 11 October to Saturday 17 October 2009. Read on to see the most commented articles, every other article this week, and the most commented articles of all time...... Read More

When considering an online travel startup you tend to think about three approaches. Taking on the incumbent, creating a whole new category that you can dominate, and assuming that the market must be massive so if you only capture 1% you're doing ok. Hence a great deal of an entrepreneur's time is taken by active consideration of building or bypassing barriers to entry. So, take TripAdvisor's primary barrier to entry...... Read More

The BlueSky-Thomas Cook saga is potentially entering its final days as administrators juggle with five bids for the Intellectual Property Rights of the beleaguered company's iTour software system. Tnooz understands that although the bidding process is officially still open, administrator MCR is already evaluating the five bids on the table and is expected to make a decision "far quicker than normal", a source says. The five companies are believed to be technology shops Comtec, Traveltek, Partners Software and another unnamed tech firm, alongside Thomas Cook, as revealed earlier this week.... Read More

When the Google behemoth speaks about travel, as one official did during the company's third quarter conference call yesterday, we listen. But, all we got were more generalities and little substance about Google's intentions in the travel vertical. Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president of product management, was discussing chrome [not the browser] toasters and Google's efforts to improve the shopping vertical. "Real estate, finance, and travel are also other areas that we're going to get quite focused on and obviously we will also continue to improve Google horizontally," Rosenberg said.... Read More

UK-based Simonseeks made a reasonably big splash in June this year when it launched, mostly because it looks better than your average review site, got a decent run with the PR, and is the brainchild of the co-founder of Moneysupermarket. Four months on and its latest initiative is to aggregate and review flight meta search providers, each of which provides a revenue stream to Simonseeks, as well as having an exclusive white label widget from another provider (currently Kayak). Confused? Probably.... Read More

Southwest Airlines gets a lot of love for its Bags Fly Free Campaign. which enables travelers to check two bags for free. Here's the Southwest marketing message: "While bag fees have become the norm amongst our competitors, we don’t believe in springing unpleasant surprises on our Customers. Staying true to our reputation as the maverick of the airline industry, this is just another way that we dare to be different." But, actually the airline is more myth-maker than maverick in some respects because it is busy strategizing about optimal ways of attracting ancillary-services revenue in a host of other areas.... Read More

Sometimes I have to calm myself down and reel myself in. I was thinking about that in the days following stories I wrote about how "Google Sidewiki could be a sideshow for review sites" and "Why TechCrunch is wrong about Google Sidewiki." Will consumers really take advantage of the ability to comment about a publishers' website in a side window visible only to fellow Sidewiki users? I have to admit that I haven't opened Sidewiki, which sits in my Google Toolbar, since I wrote those posts. It takes an extra step and who has the time.... Read More

Need somewhere to keep the MP3 player, batteries, camera, leads, DS, USB keys and mobile phone tidy when travelling?... Read More

Responsibletravel.com has today given its online carbon offsetting programme the chop - a move almost guaranteed to inspire differing opinions about how to highlight climate change with air travel-hungry travellers. One of the first organisations to do so, the site proudly launched its offsetting programme in 2002 and spearheaded a round of soul-searching within larger travel firms as to how they should deal with the thorny issue of selling or promoting travel at the same time as appearing to be aware of its impact on the global environment. Fast forward seven years and ResponsibleTravel has abandoned the programme, citing a Friends of the Earth report into the wider offsetting issue.... Read More

Travel guide site TripWolf is to work with guidebook brand Footprint to digitise its entire portfolio of destination content from around 60 books. Following a trial for Footprint's Peru edition, TripWolf will spend the next few weeks and months taking the original text files of the remaining guidebooks and add a string of electronic marks to make it web-friendly. CEO Sebastian Heinzel says the Footprint content will be available alongside existing material on the Tripwolf site - but will include a Footprint stamp to indicate the source.... Read More